Battle of the Dukla Pass

The Battle of the Dukla Pass (8 September-28 October 1944) was a bitterly contested battle fought between the Allied Soviet and Czechoslovakian armies and the Axis German and Hungarian armies for the Dukla Pass on the Poland-Slovakia border. The Axis halted the Soviet offensive and inflicted heavy losses, but they ultimately withdrew, completing the liberation of Ukraine.

On 31 August 1944, Marshal Ivan Konev was tasked with preparing plans to destroy Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia as the Slovak National Uprising began; his plan was to push through the old Slovak-Polish border in the Carpathian Mountains via the Dukla Pass. However, they had to face the Arpad Line (also called Karpatenfestung, or "Carpathian fortress"), a series of Axis defensive positions. It took the Soviets three days to take the town of Krosno, and one of the biggest battles occurred around Hill 534, and the hill changed hands 20 times over the course of 10 days. The Soviets seized Dukla on 21 September, and the Soviets finally reached the Slovak border on 6 October 1944. The Soviet arrival at Dukla Pass had taken a month, and the Slovak uprising had already been crushed by this time; the Slovaks had failed to secure the other side of the pass due to an unexpectedly high concentration of Axis troops being stationed there. Soviet and German armor would clash in the "Valley of Death" near Dobroslava as the Soviets attempted to push through the pass, and it took until 28 October 1944 for the Soviets to take Svidnik.

The Soviets failed in their objective to assist the Slovaks with overthrowing the German occupiers, and they suffered 70,000 losses in one of the bloodiest battles of the Eastern Front and in the history of Slovakia. However, the Soviets succeeded in liberating the last parts of modern Ukraine from the Germans, and the Axis forces were ultimately forced to withdraw.